CEdu510 - Class 2

Unfortunately, I had to miss last week's class due to parent/teacher conferences. Not that I don't enjoy conferences, I would have just preferred learning about search engines and word processing in our classroom environment rather than at home alone. The presentation on search engines proved to be interesting. There were more vocabulary words that I had never heard of that needed to be learned, for example: boolean, truncation, and computer robot programs called spiders. I found the article on choosing the best search for your information need to be something in which I will reference in the future. In addition, I am going to try venturing away from Google and use Yahoo! and Ask more frequently or in conjunction with Google as my primary search engine. In reviewing the overview on word processing, I realized that I don't know as much about word processing as I should. I would like to learn more of the intermediate editing functions, such as merge printing and creating an index. I also realized that I really need to teach my students how to use the writing aids to enhance their work. Sometimes I assume that they know how to use these features because they are juniors and seniors in high school. I have learned any kind of assumptions based on age can be proven incorrect, especially when working with EEN students. Another chunk of time outside of class was spent on reading and completing work for chapters 3 and 4 of the text. Both chapters were important because they focused on how to help our students become engaged learners by using technology to guide communication and critical thinking.

CEdu510, Class 1

While in class we spent some time checking out graphics programs. The list of possibilities to survey included the following: Roxik, Offtype, Draw Greetings, Queeky, Zoooo Draw, Toon Doo, Toonlet, Image Chef, Zcubes, Shidonni, Mr. Picassohead, Face in Hole, and Go Animate. After not being able to get Shidonni and Go Animate, I spent the majority of my time on creating a Face in Hole shot that I titled "Statue of Giggety". It is my face on the Statue of Liberty. (Giggety is a name some of my senior students call me.) I'm considering using this program with my communications class, only hesitating because of some of the inappropriate options that my be chosen by my class of all boys.

Time was also spent in class reviewing presentation programs. I found this to be especially interesting because I never imagined there were so many options to create presentations! The list we were given included Empressr, Google Apps, SlideBoom, 280 Slides, My Plick, Slideroll, Author Stream, Slide Share, and PreZentit. I started creating a slide show on PreZentit and after getting a bit frustrated I switched to 280 Slides. The program itself seemed easy to creat with, however, I had much difficulty doing the most basic of activities on the MAC platform. As a result, my presentation is of poor quality. This was a very beneficial experience for me because it reminded me that my students who do not have computer access at home may not be comfortable with the basic operations that other students have acquired with daily use. I must be careful not to assess student's based solely on their product.

Reading and reviewing Chapters 1 and 2 of the text was the focus of the time spent studying outside of class. Overall, I found the chapters to contain useful information. It was a nice introduction to how and why technology should be utilized.